


Relatively Simple

by kreigen



Series: Madame Vastra & Jenny [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Backstory, Canon Lesbian Relationship, F/F, Fluff, Inner Dialogue, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-16
Updated: 2017-11-16
Packaged: 2019-02-03 08:27:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12744660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kreigen/pseuds/kreigen
Summary: A post "Name of the Doctor" fic, from Vastra's POV. Mainly her ruminations about what Jenny means to her/ reflecting on her past. Interspersed with poetry (in italics) which I wrote. Touches upon Vastra's feelings about meeting Jenny, being awakened, and Jenny's deaths at Trenzalore - especially the second time. Some internal angst but mainly thought processes and fluff.(NB: This was my first Madame Vastra/Jenny fic back from 2013)





	1. Chapter 1

_She is only ordinary,_ __  
_Only a blip in the vastness of time,_ __  
_An anomaly,_ __  
_A product of her history._ _  
_ _She is nothing special,_ _  
_ _Yet perhaps that is what makes her_ _  
_ _All the more extraordinary_

The heart of a human, I am told, is a relatively simple thing.

It lies there, merely the size of a clenched fist, but every one of its beats (of which it averages around 72 per minute), is a mini-miracle, fuelling the even bigger miracle of the person who happens to harbour it.

It had four chambers, two for the reception of blood, and two for the sending away of blood. The blood flows through the heart in a pre-defined pathway, following two circuits. It is this pumping in and out of blood that gives the beat of the heart its "lub dub" sound, which you can hear if you place your ear to the chest of your loved one.

Relatively simple, I am told, in the grand scheme of things anyway.

When the heart stops, it is called "cardiac arrest". It this state (if you are lucky), it is possible for the heart to continue to quiver "Like a pitiful human in the face of a Sontaran Warrior" – as Strax described it, but technically known as "ventricular fibrillation". The heart continues to contract in an uncoordinated fashion, a phenomenon otherwise known as arrhythmia. As long as the heart is in this state (and has not completely ceased all electrical activity and entered asystole (flatline)) it is possible to dramatically improve chances of survival, and quickly and suddenly jolt the heart back into rhythm through early defibrillation.

Defibrillation delivers a controlled electrical shock to the heart, which depolarises a critical mass and ceases the irregular rhythm. To simplify it, it acts like a runway light, giving the body a clear pathway to re-establish its natural rhythm. The Doctor tells me that in future London, devices to deliver these shocks are commonplace, and even can be found in large public buildings, or embedded in the walls of some larger London Underground stations.

Simple, really. The more I think about it, objectify it, describe it in scientific terms, the more I see how the events of Trenzalore were nothing special – just a simple defibrillation, a common electrical restart, a normal medical procedure, easily resolved. Sure, luck played some part in the ease of recovery, but there was no reason to lose it, or lash out at Strax. I do feel some guilt at threatening him still.

But the trouble is for me, is that the heart has always been more than the sum of its parts, or its functions, or its medical terminology. No matter how hard I try to see it through a cold, calculated lens, and reason with myself otherwise, the heart is nothing but simple when it comes to  _her._

By Victorian standards, she is nothing special; she is a maid, working class, a woman, unmarried (well, by the standards of the Church, and to a man at least), and of unusual "preferences in companionship" – a 'Tom', if you like. But I have never put much stock in the pre-defined standards of ape society, and these facts about her only serve to make her all the more extraordinary to me; because of all she has managed to do for me. An unremarkable woman by all parameters of the times, but she saved me, changed me, moved my life, and brought out feelings in me that once upon a time seemed impossible. A proud Silurian Warrior, floored by an ordinary homo-sapien.

_As she sighed,_

_The warmth on the tip of her tongue_ _  
_ _Seemed to melt the frost on my window_

_A_ _nd let in the sun,_

_The same I once shunned_

_And belittled_

_For a life that never begun._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is slightly longer and structured different from the last one - more of a recollection than a thought process, but I will return to that style for the next chapter.

_Years of cryptic signs,_

_The remnants of settlements_

_Left to decay,_

_Built on fault lines_ __  
_Of blameless crimes,_ __  
_Fell beneath me_ _  
_ _As the subtle became sublime._

I remember the first time that she almost died in my protection; something that as of late seems to have become a commonplace occurrence over which I appear to have little control. It was the first night that we ever met, and even then, it was only a secondary intervention by the Doctor that ultimately led to our escape.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

When I first laid eyes upon her, she had been cornered by three men, no more than common thugs. I myself just happened to be roaming the streets in that area, hungry, contemplating my fate, and repeating the Doctor's words in my head: "Anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake". How pertinent, how wise they had seemed at the time, but as I took step after solitary step along the pathway I had chosen, the phrase only served as a taunt to amplify my ever-pervasive sense of loneliness.

What exactly had I gained from forsaking vengeance?

The complex answer was this: I had an awkward position amongst a civilisation of animals for which I had little respect, no family, no friends (not even a familiar Silurian face), and no purpose of any real worth. The Doctor had set me up with enough to get by (how, he would not tell me), and had left me with one simple message "Redeem yourself". When I had asked him what that meant, he had answered that I would "Know when I had found it". His response had almost threatened to re-ignite my anger at the time, but I held my restraint and took his judgement with grace.

In short, from where I was standing, the simple answer to that question was this: I had gained nothing.

So, with little else to occupy my time, I took to stalking the back alleys at night, searching for ape low-life for prey and sustenance. I figured I was doing society a favour by erasing these walking parasites, whilst simultaneously satisfying my own blood lust and hunger. If I am totally honest with myself, the thought of revenge was never far from consciousness. Not that killing any more humans made any difference to the dull ache of sorrow that followed the death of my sisters; something I wish I had understood earlier.

It was the scream that caught my attention – a female scream. I was in half a mind to ignore it that night, as I was not feeling suitably roused enough to deal with the aftermath of a terrified ape female fainting at the sight of a vicious lizard woman devouring one of her kind. It always perturbed me that they were more fixated on that rather than the fact that I had just rescued them. But as I turned to avoid the noise an image of the Doctor (looking unimpressed) blazed across my eyes, and I decided that if I truly wanted to redeem myself, I would have to make some effort towards being truly altruistic.

I had jogged to the source of the noise and found her, backed into the corner of an alley, her back arched almost like a domestic feline, blood pouring from a cut in her eye. I noted that the man directly opposite her had a bloodied nose – this young ape had obviously put up more than her fair share of a fight. But there was no chance for escape for her now, well, at least not without my intervention.

"Think you're clever eh sweetheart?" the man with the damaged nose had growled, "Well we are going to make you pay for that little mistake"

"Unhand her!"

I heard my voice carry across the alleyway before I had seemingly decided to speak.

The mean turned instinctively, the bloodied nose man placing his oversized hand snugly around the girl's neck before doing so. I was them look me up and down and survey me, before starting to laugh.

"Another bleedin' woman who thinks she knows better!" one of the flanking men sneered. I should probably mention that since I was veiled, and it was night time, there was no way they could make out my true complexion from that distance.

"Shu'rrup Bill" the middle one countered, obviously annoyed that he had not been allowed to have the first word, "There will be more to go around…" he leered.

At this point, all my warrior instincts began to kick in – first basic principle of attacking a group: when you are outnumbered, aim to take out the leader. Once the head of the group has been felled, the subservient members are likely to lose confidence and direction, and will subsequently flee and panic. That was the theory behind what I did anyway. The reality was that within a matter of seconds I had sprinted forward without warning, and sunk my teeth into the neck of the middle man.

As the other two men baulked at the scene before them, I found myself pondering at my behaviour as of late, and all my rash, foolhardy decisions (this being one of them). Whatever happened to the collected, rational, intellectual version of me, the one who existed pre-hibernation? Before I had a chance to truly reflect on the consequences of this realisation, I had begrudgingly tossed aside the now limp man in my grasp (he did look remarkably tasty for an ugly man) and turned to snarl at the remaining thugs, who very quickly decided to flee out of the alley through the way I had entered.

In my anger I had temporarily forgotten the very reason I had streaked so recklessly into this fetid alley. I turned to the victim, expecting to see her cowering in the dead end of the alley, but instead saw her gazing up at me – some apprehension in her face, granted, but overwhelmingly her expression was of wonder and curiosity. Instinctively I held out my hand to her where she was sat on the floor (from where the man had dropped her at my attack) and she took it without hesitation.

I remember very specifically (because I marked it as odd at the time) that I inexplicably found myself noting how naturally her hand seemed to fit into my own.

Once she was standing, she brushed herself off as if nothing major had happened and stood square on to me, looking me straight in the eye. Although I hated to admit it, even though she was a human, there was something undeniably attractive in her demeanour.

"Cor blimey Miss!" she still stared at me, wide-eyed, "You're a little bit diff'runt ain't you?"

I didn't know whether she meant this disparagingly or as a conversational starter, so I replied as neutrally as I could manage.

"My name is Vastra, and I am a descendant of an ancient lizard race which once inhabited this Earth millions of years ago."

"Right…well if you say so"

"I was awakened by your ape builders as they extended your underground transportation network"

"Well, that does seem awf'ly rude of them"

I paused and we both continued to look at each other in mutual surprise; me at her apparent lack of fear of my alien appearance, and her for rather obvious reasons.

"Are you hurt?" I managed.

"Not much, no less than I'm used to Miss" she shrugged, and I noticed how poorly dressed she was, how malnourished she appeared. This human obviously was of a lower class distinction compared to some of her contemporaries.

"And…" I hesitated before carrying on, "You're not…afraid of me?"

"If you'll beg my pardon Miss, but you weren't the one trying to rob me of my maidenhood were you?" she replied, matter-of-factly.

I couldn't really think of a suitable retort to that, so I settled for a nod and a grunt of agreement.

"Well, won't do me any good standing round here any longer I suppose!" she sighed after another unnatural silence, "Thanks Ma'am" she smiled at me, with genuine warmth I hadn't felt since I last saw the Doctor, "I guess I may see you around; you're not exactly easy to miss, are ya?"

"Goodbye…"

"Jenny" she called back over her shoulder as she walked out of the alley, "Jenny Flint"

I smiled sadly as she walked away, for no other discernible reason than I had quite enjoyed her company, as short as it had been. It is strange how you can become acclimatised to a state of being where the absence of light is normality, and the presence of even a slither of brightness is so overwhelming it is near blinding with its warmth.

But then when it is shut out again, it is impossible to ignore the flash seared onto your retinas, and the darkness you had become so used to is revealed as painfully inadequate.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to watch my only intelligent conversation for months turn a corner out of my life, when I was startled by a sudden crack.

I opened my eyes to see the girl, Jenny, sprawled out on the floor with blood gushing from a gash in her head, and a man stood over her, jagged plank of wood hanging conspiratorially in his muscly hands.

"What did I say lads?! If you want a job done well, do it yourself!"

I looked beyond him and saw he was backed up by at least 15 thuggish men, including the two that I had scared off earlier. It appears I had miscalculated; the man I had finished earlier was only a sub-leader, I could see that now in the way the other men watched the armed man expectantly, hanging on his every breath – here was the true ringleader.

And with that observation, I noted that both of us were duly trapped, with no viable means of escape.

The same trick wouldn't work twice; they had the element of surprise on their side this time round, and outnumbered me more than even my best Silurian warrior tactics could handle. The best I could hope for now was to take down as many as possible with me, and hopefully distract them from defiling the human for as long as possible.

I altered my stance ready to attack as soon as they advanced, but before they could get a step on me, a great grinding, whirring, distinctive noise filled the air around me.

The men, great and beefy as they were, still paused to look around - clearly startled and bemused at the sound. I was sure I recognised it, but barely dared to allow myself the hope that it could be him, it was too fantastical to believe.

The look on the men's faces as they stared over my shoulder told me what I had suspected was indeed true. Before they could register what was happening I had dashed forward to grab the unconscious Jenny under the armpits. I looked behind me as I dragged her backwards and saw the blue telephone box wedged in the alleyway behind me, the long-faced, bowtie clad man stepping out of it looking as if he had just walked in on a cocktail party.

"Ah, Vastra…" he surveyed the scene in a matter of seconds, "Fancy a lift?" he quipped, his gait ever so lanky and awkward, just how I remembered it.

"Run!" I shouted back.

He dashed back into the Tardis as I followed, bringing the girl with me. The men had finally realised we were denying them what they wanted and had rushed forward, only to have the Tardis door slammed in their faces.

They continued to strike and hammer the door as the Doctor ran around his console, seemingly adjusting dials and hitting buttons at random.

"Doctor…how-"

"We do seem to have a habit of bumping into each other at just the right time don't we my Silurian friend" he smiled at me, apparently enjoying the situation thoroughly.

"Well, quite, but the human is injured, Doctor"

"Ah don't you worry about that, she'll be fine, I just know it" he jammed back a lever, and we seemed to lurch forward.

"What is that supposed to mean?!" I yelled over the deafening sound of the machine taking off uncomfortably and surging through space and time rather haphazardly. I clung to the girl as she lay resting limply in my arms, not wanting her to be flung around.

"Oh don't you worry" he laughed, "No point giving it all away is it?"

I shook my head in despair, but then again, I should have known better than to expect a proper answer from him.

* * *

Later, when we had laid the human down on a free sofa in my dwellings, we had some time to speak a little more candidly.

"So you saved her?" he spoke, sounding possibly a little more surprised than he had intended to, "You realise by the looks of her she probably lives on the streets?"

"I realise that" I turned my head to look at her from another angle, her head was bandaged up by supplies the Doctor had pulled somewhere from the apparently infinitely treasured Tardis, "But something just seemed, 'correct' about helping her" I admitted, a little embarrassed about the vague nature of my answer.

He seemed satisfied with it though.

"You realise Scotland Yard are very interested to contact the individual who has been dispensing of some of the most wanted criminals in London, as they seem to be disappearing at a rather alarming rate?"

He looked at me with raised eyebrows, like a father disciplining a mischievous child.

"I…" I started, rather sheepishly.

"They said if the individual would come forward and name themselves, and perhaps convert to more…'orthodox' methods" he cleared his throat at this point, "They may be able to form a working partnership with them"

I said nothing, simply thinking his words over in my head; I would need time to fully consider all the consequences of what he had implied, and what I could potentially make of it. Right now I could only seem to focus on the injured human that lay in front of us. Something about the whole situation; us running into each other, her lack of fear of me, the Doctor appearing out of nowhere – seemed to fit together to create something that felt more like fate than chance.

"Doctor…" I began.

"Yes Vastra"

"Is this…" I hesitated, feeling his intensive gaze upon me, "Is  _she_  my redemption?"

"Why do you ask that?" he said, his face still irritatingly neutral.

"Because it feels like it is" I answered honestly.

At this his broke into a grin that reached even the corners of his eyes and clapped me on the back so unexpectedly that it almost knocked me onto the sofa on top of the human.

"Ah Vastra, you finally got it!" he laughed and turned to jog back into his Tardis, leaving me standing over the sleeping girl.

"Wait!" I shouted back.

The Doctor turned, half in the door, talking around it, still smiling like a mad man.

"We choose our own redemption Vastra, something cannot free us if we will not allow ourselves to be let go" at this his face turned slightly darker, more sombre, "Anyone can open the prison door, it's up to you whether or not you want to follow them out or not"

At this he patted on the Tardis door before I could say another word, and the great machine began to creak and fade out of my home. He was gone as soon as he had appeared, just like the first time I had met him.

I turned back to the slumbering being that rested below me. Jenny Flint – my redemption? Perhaps it was as simple as marking her as my redemption that caused her to become it, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts; a self-made prediction altering my future by its very nature of existing, coming true just for the very fact that I acknowledge it.

Redemption: the absolution for past sins. Lord knows I needed it.

_The taint of all my past;_ _  
_ _The dirty hands, and crumbling sands_ _  
_ _Of cities never to last._

_A metropolis so vast_

_Swept away in moments,_

_With the glancing touch_

_Of a cataclysmic blast._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I was going to do this and the next chapter together, but it made more sense to split it up.
> 
> This is more of a thought process/recollection. I hope you enjoy it. I tried to get into character with Vastra quite heavily here, and the feeling of a memory which isn't truly clear even to the one who experienced it.

_I saw a reflection in her eye_ __  
_Of everything I used to be,_ __  
_It glowed and led me_ _  
_ _To a vision of all I could be._

_Now there is a gap in my memory,_ __  
_A glaring omission;_ _  
_ _The absence of a frightening enemy._

Memory is an incredible phenomenon.

It is fallible, subject to change, notoriously unreliable, biased by recollection, aged with time; and yet we craft our entire lives based around what it tells us, how it makes us feel.

It is easy, but patently inaccurate to think of memory as some sort of tape recorder, which we can start and stop at any time. It would be more pertinent to think of it as a set of miniature actors within your head, who may have the script to these moments of your life – but change their performance depending on what mood they are in, forget lines, improvise, and substitute each other for understudies.

Yet the mere act of recall, the simple deed of remembering, can whip the air from your lungs faster than a low blow from a Sontaran warrior. It can bring tears to your eyes as if you had just watched your loved ones die before you. You can be plunged into a moment, with all the smells, sounds, tastes, and sights, yet still be unsure if what you are immersed in is really how it happened, or just some shabby reconstruction. Not that it matters in a way, because whether it happens to be an exact replica or a clever copy, a memory alone can be enough to ruin a lifetime.

There is not a lot of difference between human and Silurian memory, to my knowledge. We tend to have heightened gustatory, olfactory, and kinaesthetic memory compared to humans (as these senses are superiorly developed in our reptile species), but the actual mechanics of memory: the encoding, storage, and retrieval are practically identical.

There is a particular type of memory, thought only to occur at the point of some extremely surprising, distressing, or life changing news – often large-scale cultural events or disasters, or the death of somebody important. This occurrence is known as a "Flashbulb Memory" and the recollection that it preserves is often exceptionally detailed, and far more vivid than an 'average' autobiographical memory. Not that this means that it is unable to be distorted, just that it appears more 'real' than other memories may seem.

I have two particular memories which I would regard as 'true' Flashbulb Memories. One is the day I was awakened from my hibernation, the other is from my recent experience in Trenzalore.

Neither are pleasant.

* * *

Before I was awoken, all I recall was warmth. It was a restful, all-encompassing, blissful warmth. This warmth felt safe; like an eternal peace that would never willingly be forsaken. In this state, I could not comprehend my preceding life or recall my past history at will. Pure hibernation, waiting, but for what I cannot be sure.

I may have lain in this slumber for thousands of years longer, had it not been for the unwelcome awakening that careered into my life without warning. Perhaps I would have opened my eyes to a barren land, uninhabited and destroyed by nature. Or maybe a vast metropolis of technology even more advanced than our Silurian own. Or best yet, the expectant faces of my own kind, my family.

I do not like to dwell on these thoughts too excessively. If it has not been for my unexpected re-entry into consciousness I would not have become "The Great Detective" and made a life for myself so assuredly and independently. Even more importantly, I would not have met her.

But despite this, and all my logical machinations to myself, my mind will still (even to this day) on occasion wander into these self-defeating ruminations; the "What if?" and "If only" questions. If only the underground extension has been redirected by a few metres! What if me and my sisters had hibernated just a little deeper, further down than the humans were willing to delve? Perhaps then I would still have my peace, and the promise of a future amongst my own kind.

But, as I said before, in this reality I would not have her, and the thought of that is enough to make me abandon the process altogether. Self-pity is an abhorrent weakness.

Anyway, I digress.

This warm feeling I remember is not the flashbulb memory I described, but the precursor to it, the "calm before the storm" to utilise an over-used cliché. What I am about to try and convey next is the lightning-fast recollection of surprise, and all the hurt and emotional anguish that came in its wake. However, you must understand that some of this is truly beyond comprehension for me, and I am unable to place it adequately into words.

* * *

Light, as blinding to me as looking directly into the sun. On reflection it could have been my immersion in total darkness for millennia which made the gas lamp appear so bright. When my vision returned I could just about comprehend that a great circular tunnelling shield had passed right by my head, exposing it just where the workers were bracing to place the cast-iron tubing that would form the tunnel.

Then, the flashbulb.

His face; the worker that stood closer to me. The imprint of his face is an indelible instant of clarity, a flashbulb that I have never been able to erase. I remember his weathered, watery-blue (almost grey) eyes, dilated in surprise and fear, the look of horror spreading from there down to his gaping mouth (clean-shaven, but stained and flecked with dust and dirt), the flat cap upon his scruffy head – slightly askew on his dirty blonde hair, and the noise and smell – the gasp and release of pheromones that conveyed pure terror. More importantly, this scene altogether gave me one vital piece of information – that I had not awoken into the society I had once inhabited.

After that I lose the clarity of the memory.

I remember the man behind the scared man speak up,

"Dirk, another one, kill it before it wakes up like the rest!"

" _Like the rest?!"_  I cry out, shrilly.

Then I am standing, crying out in a high-pitched wail – calling out to my kin, my sisters, a cry that should have awoken my family no matter how deep their slumber was. It didn't work. Now I am desperately trying to establish some form of telepathic Silurian connection with them, no answer, no reply, they are gone. The three workers had clasped their hands to their ears to block out the sound of my calls.

"You" I spit, pointing to the man who had spoken, "You killed them!"

Then my memory becomes even more distorted, as if a red mist had descended across the scene.

" _Kill"_  my brain commanded, and I did not fight it.

Flashes of red, blood perhaps? Or maybe my anger transcending metaphor to literally cloud my vision? I honestly could not tell you, because I simply do not remember the distinction between the two anymore.

I rattle from emotion to emotion. Deep sorrow morphs to rage, morphs to vile elation – I have taken the lives of these primitive savages, I do not know how many – I only care insomuch as I desire to take as many of them with me before they fell me.

Now I am running, down a tunnel, the same tunnel that was being extended when they woke me. Somehow I find my way to street level; the air is freezing and hits me like a wave of cold ocean blue. But I am immune.

Screaming, running, cowering – pitiful ape travellers, more fall, I do not care.

" _Stop"_

It is a male voice, non-Silurian I am sure, but somehow managing to speak telepathically with me.

" _They have killed them!"_  I pivot around in the space that has been cleared for me my terrified humans avoiding me, but communicate back to him telepathically.

" _Where is your pride ancient Silurian?"_  the voice speaks again.

" _What use is pride stranger, when anger fulfils all needs?!"_ I prepare to lash out once more, and forsake the voice.

" _You wish to be as weak as the race that slaughtered your sisters out of ignorance?"_

I pause, the red mist clearing; I look down to see my hands and traditional Silurian clothing stained in darkening fresh blood.

" _I am not like them!"_  I reply as I start to shake from shock, half-angry, half-afraid of what I have done.

" _They will parade you like a circus animal, or if you are lucky – hack you to death"_

" _No!"_ The realisation began to dawn on me – all these people staring at me, the inevitable defeat, and more crushingly – my own pathetic descent into brutality.

"Help me…" I had spoken aloud. I had fallen to my knees without even noticing.

"Anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake" - the voice is now next to me.

A friendly hand has helped me up. I look up and see a concerned, intelligent face above me; my vision is now clouded with tears. The man does not smell human. He is saying things to the crowd, making up some story about a circus act, parting the ways and rushing me off before anyone can regain their senses enough to stop them, he is talking so fast and with such confidence that nobody has time to contradict him. We only stop moving when I am inside some sort of spacecraft, still weeping uncontrollably; not ready to die, but not truly sure of how to live anymore.

* * *

The first time she died at Trenzalore, I became that Silurian again. That time is just as blurry and is almost identical to how I felt as I carved up those innocent human bystanders. I am ashamed that I descended that quickly into violence once again. I threatened Strax (although he did not seem that fazed by it, I felt suitably guilty), and thoughts and emotions that had laid dormant since the incident in the tunnel raged free once more and mixed with new sorrow. In a sense, I wonder now if I am simply an unexploded bomb, waiting for someone to cut the wrong wire before I self-destruct uncontrollably. It scares me how similar those two incidences could have become, had she not been revived.

But, as I said at the start of this, that time was dealt with swiftly - it was a simple medical emergency. There was still hope. Although I submitted myself to the perils of unadulterated anger for the second time since my awakening, it was nothing compared to the second time I lost her that night.

That is where the second flashbulb memory lies.

_I had forgotten to recall_ __  
_How close I once felt_ _  
_ _To being nothing at all._

_That frantic,_

_Unrelenting panic,_

_That fear_

_Before the fall._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was my favourite chapter to write, and the hardest. Emotionally this was draining - trying to feel how Vastra would, and trying to embody all the devastation. Prepare for majot angst. I think that this is the most heartbreaking Jenny/Vastra moment, and I really wanted to convey that.
> 
> One thing. I have used some dialogue from the episode marked with *s to keep this as canon as possible - I did not invent this dialogue. That belongs to Doctor Who's writers, as do the characters...etc...
> 
> The scene at the end is, in my head, what happened before we see the re-union after Clara's act of self-sacrifice (when they are all stood around comforting each other). To me, something needs to connect Vastra being alone, to them all calmly talking to each other. Makes no sense to me!

_And then it stopped._ __  
_Now quiet lays_ __  
_Where a broken record once jumped and played_ __  
_And screeched through the chorus of a burnt out song._ __  
_A tired melody to keep forgetting,_ __  
_Only to hear the same old words in a different setting._ _  
_ _But no more._

Sometimes the most frightening thing about something is all the potential ways it could have gone differently – how dependent the outcome of an event is on the cruel hand of chance. Even though kismet may have dealt in your favour this one time, there are thousands of possible multiple realities where it could have turned to disaster. What is it that draws the line between fate and sheer dumb luck? It is an overwhelming concept to comprehend, because it stretches to infinity. Everything that should have been, could have been, and all the things we never get to experience, for better or worse.

"" _To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that.""_

I read that from one of the Doctor's books from the future, 1951 to be exact – " _Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia"_. A book for juvenile apes I believe, but it caught my attention temporarily and I happened to glance at this quote from it as I was flicking through the pages, in that strange circumstantial fashion that a lot of my life seems to take since I awoke from my slumber. The quote, I think, is meant to be a commentary on the futility of wasting your life trying to account for all the possibilities from your past that were missed, and to accept that things cannot be changed. An admirable sentiment, however Mr. Lewis did not know about time travel, or the Doctor. With this context, the quote, for me, embodies a frightening unknown; all the little events that balance so precariously in our past, just waiting to be tipped.

And goodness knows, the Doctor's life is full of them.

* * *

When the Great Intelligence invaded and corrupted the Doctor's timeline, I didn't immediately fear the worst, strange as that might sound. I thought of all the grand events – the Daleks, the Cybermen, the Time War, and all the countless times he had saved entire planets, star systems, even the universe. It did not even occur to me (immediately, at least), that for every massive turning point, there are millions of sub-consequences.

I did not even consider that she may be taken. Or maybe I did (deep down), but part of me hoped that the universe would not be that callous.

Selfish as it is, as I stood outside watching as the universe disappeared like gas lamps being extinguished, and as the Doctor writhed within his tomb in agony as his life was re-written, I could not help but feel an element of relief at the fact that I still had Jenny. I was still able to manage this catastrophe if I had her to support me; earlier on in this day had shown me already just exactly what would become of me if I lost her, and I did not want a repeat of that episode. All I needed was time to think.

But time was working against us, and more importantly was working against  _him._

That man, who had guided me to my redemption and saved the very thing that had freed me, was dying. I had so much to thank him for, I would never truly repay the debt I owed him – but he would never ask for it back anyway, except that one incident with Amy and the baby; as if that amounted to equalling the score! One simple battle could never atone for my sins he had walked me away from, or match the love I had found through his suggestion that redemption was my choice. Yes, he had done unspeakable things, you could tell in his countenance. But you could trust that he had always done it for noble reasons, terrible, yet essentially right.

Now so many pivotal moments were being reversed, and the fallout was simply incalculable. How could we stop something that had been split infinitely and scattered across an entire life, even the parts that hadn't happened to them yet? The damage that could be done was almost infinite. It would take like for like to even have a chance at stopping the Great Intelligence, but who would be prepared to rip themselves into echoes and wrench their soul into countless pieces? It was an unspeakable price to pay…and with no guarantee of success. Were we simply condemned to a life without the Doctor? A life without all the good deeds he had done?

I thought back, to that night in the alley with that young stranger. I smiled to myself despite the situation; if only then I had known I would marry the girl who refused to cower from my hand! If you had told me that then I would have probably hissed at you. Inter-species love! I never thought I was the type…

But thanks to him, I had been given the chance to find out something unexpected about myself.

*"Think how many lives that man saved, how many worlds! He saved your life when we met…" I almost laughed as I turned to face her.

Then it happened, for the second time.

Although this time, the flashbulb memory was not of a face but the lack of one.

She was gone.

It was the lack of her that was so profound. I could not smell the usual, comforting scent of her skin – her perspiration, her chemical signals, and the perfume she applied to herself all jumbled up into one "Jenny" aroma. There was no sound, no steady breathing, shifting limbs, certainly no speech. Along with the smell went the taste of her on my tongue; the sting of her fear and confusion. It was a sensory lacuna; a gaping presence of an absence.

Then there was the obvious visual loss: her face, her body, and all the features I thought I had mapped out over a seemingly endless time were now suddenly so difficult to recall. What exact shade of brown were her eyes exactly? Where would I place that beauty spot on her face? How could I not remember?! If I never saw her again how could I recreate her in my mind if all the minor details can be lost in the time it takes to turn one hundred and eighty degrees? If only I could imprint what I had of her in my mind…but there was too much to remember, too much that had the potential to go missing…

Then the worst part of it dawned on me.

The gap in time. Right now Jenny flint did not exist, and had not existed since…since when exactly?

Since the point where I should have saved her in that alleyway.

Then, what had happened that night? I was still alive, so we couldn't have both been killed by that gang…

Did I…abandon her?

Or had I simply not cared? If the Doctor had not met me I doubt I would have ever come to the same conclusions he had guided me to. Maybe I had the scene and passed it by; let those men…defile her. Oh God, what had they done to her?!

I felt the horror constrict my throat like a hangman's noose, one not quite long enough to snap my vertebrae humanely. I was suffocating with the weight of myself and all my own thoughts. It may seem strange that so much appeared to pass through my mind in such a small space of time, but it is hard to explain, for a moment I felt as if I was suspended in a timeless moment, trapped in a motionless tableau of my own worst nightmare.

" _Jenny? Please, Jenny! No!"_

She'd have died in pain, alone and abandoned, cast out by her parents, without one sympathetic face to comfort her, and without knowing just how much a complete stranger could come to love her. I knew from my work with the Police what gangs like that did to young girls, but it was all the more painful when I thought of it happening to Jenny, to her body which she had let me touch on all those warm, fiery nights.

Which had never happened.

A flicker, like a wavering flame, seemed to be infiltrating my cerebral hemispheres. The memories were fading, the lights failing as all our experiences together fell apart piece by piece, like a cliff face yielding to the onslaught of a storm-swept sea.

But a cliff could stand for centuries, even as parts of it are cast off into the ocean.

_No!_  I fought the urge to forget, battled the pull of reality to change me back to that primal, unforgiving creature who had torn apart innocent Londoners. I would not, could not become what I was before I knew her. Even though the Doctor had brought me out of my self-imposed frenzy, she was the one who had redeemed me, rescued me from the black hole of my own despair like some kind of human-shaped lifeline. She was the defibrillator that had ceased my aimless trembling and lit the pathway to freedom.

I would never forsake her.

Head pounding from the effort of forcing the crushing reality of my own re-written past out of my head, I jammed my fingers on the machine in my hands with no real idea of why, hoping madly for some sort of miracle.

" _Oh God, oh please no…"_

Tears were welling, from sheer heartbreak and the agony of holding on to memories and time which no longer existed. The paradox was overwhelming, and in all the confusion I had failed to notice the marked change in Strax's demeanour.

"Reptile scum. You are an affront to Sontaran purity. Prepare to perish!"

He was lost too. I never thought I would notice it so much, but without him who else did I have left? That squat, Sontaran butler was one of my only friends, no matter how odd he appeared to everyone else.

"We're friends. Strax, your past is changing! But I swear we are comrades!" I cried desperately, but reasoning with him now was pointless.

" _Die, reptile!_ "

Strax made to attack me, and instinctively I shot defensively to try and injure him enough to immobilise him. But before the shot could even connect, he had completely disappeared as well.

"Strax? Strax!"*

And then I was alone. Truly alone.

But this time I did not degenerate to anger, because what was the point? Every sweet moment, pointless argument, cry in the throes of pleasure, or simple group interaction was now an irrelevant trace on my memory. Who was I? A lost Silurian clinging on to a past that may as well have been imagined by a storywriter, because for all its vividness and resonance, it had essentially still never happened.

Jenny had died a violent, brutal death that I had done nothing to stop. We had never fallen in love, never even touched our lips together tentatively in the dead of night for the first time – when had that been? Was it inside the house, or just outside? How could I forget something like that?!

"STOP TRYING TO TAKE HER FROM ME!" I screamed, to nobody, to everybody.

And Strax, poor Strax; all he had ever needed was someone to give him a purpose and he showed his true colours. He had so much more to offer than his pre-determined life of being a clone in a massive army. What had become of him?

Those two…together they had given my life meaning. Without my companions, I was nothing. They had infused my World with reason, and now they were not a part of it, my existence seemed illogical. What was the use of living without the reciprocation of love and friendship? The fact that I even was thinking these thoughts was a small revelation in itself; I once thought pride, foolish racial pride was the ultimate honour. But it wasn't, what a waste of energy that had been, when the greatest privilege was just to share an emotion with another being! It was like I had been held in the air, looking down on a beautiful scene for so long I had forgotten about the importance of the ropes that had held me, right up until someone had slashed them before my eyes.

Now I was falling, painfully aware of every metre I lost to the ground. There was no red mist this time, no, everything was amplified with painful clarity. If I gave in, I did not know how much would be erased, it was imperative that I stayed focussed.

I had too much to lose.

* * *

Somehow I managed to stagger back into the tomb.

I am ashamed to say that by this point, mentally exhausted from holding on to my now impossible version of events, and physically drained from holding back hysteria, I had lost all motivation to hope for a happy ending. I consider myself to be an intelligent lizard, and there comes a point where, if you were a betting woman, not even you would hedge on your own side.

So it was with dead, tear-weary eyes that I looked up at Clara; so full of emotion that I had burnt out and become devoid of it. If this ended the way I feared it would, I considered the possibility of maybe burrowing somewhere in Trenzalore – perhaps in the graveyard, and hibernating permanently there where everything I cared for had been wiped away quick as a stain from a window.

*"The stars are going out! And Jenny and Strax are dead. There must be  _something_  we can do?!"*

One last try. Maybe she knew something. Quick-witted, clever little Clara. She had bright eyes, bright like Jenny's. Jenny's, which would be glazed over like glass, bloodshot from beating, and now decayed and rotten in an unmarked grave.

I had no energy to fight the morbidity. It was true.

Everything I knew, was a lie.

* * *

Of course now, with hindsight, it is perhaps surprising that I did not even consider that Clara, the impossible girl, may in herself be the intuitive solution to combat the Great Intelligence. Maybe my mental state at the time was in no fit state to process such an abstract thought.

All I know is that when that indescribably brave, remarkable woman cast herself into the timeline, I was so astounded I could barely breathe.

Then a voice, scared and tremulous.

"Vastra….Vastra?!"

" _JENNY?!"_  I yelled, calling like a great lion across a vast plain, searching for a lioness without knowing when or where from the cry will be answered.

Then it all happens very quickly; she has run into the tomb and is upon me, clinging as if the strength she held on to me with embodied her connection to life itself. I can see Strax hover sheepishly in the doorway, but all I can truly attend to is her. I plant mad kisses on her neck, as I taste the salt of my own tears run into my own mouth.

"Everything was so dark…so lost…I was so cold…dark…"

Words pour out of her like trickles into a stream after a drought, trying to fill the empty ditch with some semblance of the great might that once flowed through it. There would be time to explain what happened later, because that was the wonder; time had given her back to me, she was a part of time once more. The lacuna that had opened out had been abruptly closed.

Forgive me if I do not adequately describe the pure sense of relief and joy which enveloped me in this moment. But some things are too deeply personal to truly represent in their most beautiful form through the written word. Some things simply have to be felt to be understood.

" _I did not forget you my love_ " I whispered, it seemed important that she knew this, somehow.

"You didn't?" she looked at me, childish pleasure in her eyes as if I had allayed some awful, monstrous fear. Deep, dark oaken brown eyes – of course that was the shade, how good it felt to be sure of it.

"No" I stroked her hair with one hand whilst cradling her chin with the other, "Never."

Not even the universe could erase the mark she had made on me.

_The silence roars,_

_As a tinnitus that once bored_

_Into the side of my skull,_

_Is flattened and floored_

_By the unrelenting peace_

_From the brush of her limbs_

_Across my pores._


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This last one is mainly the form of a conversation between the two of them after Trenzalore - in the present time (as in no longer recollecting). I wanted this fic to be a nice little mix-up.

"Ventricular fibrillation…"

I speak, more to myself, as I trace a finger down her sternum, wondering the exact location where that fallible heart of hers lies, beating rhythmically.

She stirs, half in slumber, half attending to me.

"What you 'arping on about now?" she grumbles, in a fashion that tells me I have woken her up, but in a manner that means she does not particularly begrudge me for it.

"Just the mechanism by which you were almost eradicated…" I spread my palm fully to lie across her bare chest, "Thankfully a relatively simple thing to reverse"

She smiles knowingly, picks up my hand, and kisses the back of it firmly.

"You think too much" she declares, correctly. Jenny opens her eyes slightly to peer at me suspiciously, "How long have you bin watchin' me?"

I can feel my scales flush a darker green at being caught out; clearly the Great Detective did not make much of a criminal. She sighs, my silence being a more damning confession than anything I could have audibly uttered.

"I know you ain't right love, even if you pretend you are"

She was right, again. Since the ordeal at Trenzalore two weeks ago we had talked almost endlessly about it: in the dead of night when she woke with a start, in the middle of the day when she would break down crying without cause, even walking down the street when I could feel her tremble through the arm that linked through mine.

But it had always been about her.

I knew more about all the awful things that had happened to her than I ever cared to know, and the more she told me, the worse I felt. "Somewhere between an echo and complete death" is a phrase that sticks rather persistently in my mind; that is how she described the feeling of her disappearance after the Doctor's timeline was tampered with. It is so confusing to her that she struggles to adequately describe it beyond that, in fact, over the past couple of days, she has more or less given up trying to. Consequently, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that it may have been me who held her in this strange existential purgatory through my refusal to bend to the whim of reality. It is a thought which terrifies me.

Because of this, in the first few days I had ended up defaulting to a rather unhealthy pattern of behaviour whereby I would wait till she was out of the house, or engaged in some house task, or once where I even crept out in the middle of the night, and I would scream, raging at my own weakness and my own insecurity. The problem was I could barely look at her anymore. If I did, all I could see was every little danger that surrounded her daily. At first it had been so bad that I hadn't wanted to leave her side, but I knew instinctively that Jenny would never abide this, so for a while I had inadvertently started avoiding her. This had only convinced her that I was being angry at her for something, which was the opposite effect of what I had intended, so now I had compromised and taken to watching her in agonising silence. I still am too frightened to turn my back on her in case she isn't there when I turn back.

How to explain this all to her without sounding overprotective and weak, and like I wanted to cage her like some vulnerable animal, however, was another challenge.

"It was all dealt with…" I swallow, just about maintaining my composure on a knife edge, "Easy, really, medically explained," (my voice is unnaturally jovial) "No need to have panicked, no need to even think about it anymore, foolish reptile that I am!"

I am now talking far quicker than usual and accelerating with every word.

"You're right; thinking too much, that was it! I mean for goodness' sake it was just a heartbeat! I-"

She removes her hand from mine and places one finger over my lips.

"I  _could_  believe that," she speaks, deliberately, "If that is  _all_  that 'appened"

Her gaze bores through me stronger than any tunnelling shield could have, and I have to turn away as tears begin to well tellingly.

"My 'eart didn't just stop beating Vastra. That's just the only part you can understand."

I shiver as the first tear runs a chilled track down the side of my face.

"You can't control everything love-"

"I can!" I retaliate, too defensively. I'd make an atrocious poker player. I feel a hand gently outline my chin and coax it back round so I am facing her again. She is smiling sadly; no threat of retribution for me lashing out to be found anywhere in her expression.

"Talk to me." She commands quietly, kindly, "What happened when…" her voice breaks temporarily and I feel the shards of the statement she is about to say prickle my skin, "When our history…changed"

That was the savoury way of putting it, I suppose.

"You mean when you were erased from time." I whisper, matter-of-factually. Until this point I had been too terrified to say it for fear that the act of voicing it would cement its place as a reality. After all, when it had actually happened I had refused to accept it.

Jenny flinches, and almost instantly I can taste her sympathetic nervous engaging reactively at the mention of what had happened. Her eyes dilate, wide-eyed as a stalked animal. I feel a pang of guilt for being so blunt, but there was no other way for me to face this (if I was going to at all) except straightforward honesty.

"I…" she shifts subtly closer as I speak, which calms me, I continue, "I started to have trouble remembering things."

"But you told me, on the day, that you didn't forget me." She frowns, confused.

"I didn't." I correct myself hastily, "I fought it – the change in my past. I refused to accept it."

"What?!" she breathes, in horrified fascination.

I eye her frantically, as my pulse rate speeds up at the recollection.

"It was like a chisel…" my voice breaks, the speech becomes patchy, "Like a chisel on stone…chipping pieces away." I realise just how distant I sound and clear my throat, "Jenny..." I place a hand over hers, almost to check if she is still there, "You didn't exist." I baulk, and then regain my composure, "Nothing we ever did together had happened."

"What do you mean?" she returns the pressure on my hand, her voice is still remarkably patient and soft, "Vastra 'ow could we 'ave even b'in there if those things didn't 'appen?"

"It was a paradox…" I start.

"Exactly!" she grabs my hand with her other as well and turns to face me head on, "If it was so clear-cut, so inevitable, then how were you able to defy it?!"

"But I may have caused you more suffering by aggravating the contradiction!"

"I don't care." She says, firmer now, "I'm proud of you."

I shouldn't be so surprised to hear her say that, but I had still expected at least a remnant of resentment from her.

"But, in that reality…Jenny I never saved you!" I almost shake her slightly, so fervent my speech becomes, "I walked on by!"

"And you know that 'ow?!" Jenny shoots back, "Vastra, for all you know I might have run away from you, or never come within a mile of you, or maybe you never even came across me!"

"But what are the chances of that?! Maybe I attacked you Jenny, for all we know!"

"Maybe!" she grips my hand tighter, "For God's sake we could spend all day thinking up different endings and not one of them may be correct!"

She lets go of my hand and puts her own to my face. My heart flutters at how gentle her touch is despite the heat of our conversation.

"The truth is…I don't remember what happened. Unlike you, when I came back….I let myself forget it."

I digest the implications of this statement from her, for a moment.

"You mean when you came back… you knew-"

"It was like a dream" she speaks, "I knew what 'appened just as I came back, but then I felt it deliberately fading…and I just let it go. Some things aren't with saving."

So I would never know. Perhaps it made her stronger that she had the will to drop the incident and move on rather than ruminate endlessly like myself.

I think back to the quote from C. S. Lewis's book, and all the futility of rooting through a past which existed only in my imagination. Jenny was correct (for the third time today), the possibilities were endless. It had been my own paranoia which had assumed her death was somehow directly linked to my own history, but what had my history been? Who knows where I may have been that night in that alternative life?

"Vastra, dear," she kisses me on the forehead, "You didn't abandon me when I didn't exist. I don't know what more you think you could have done."

Despite myself, I feel my eyes well up. I hate crying, even in front of her.

"I didn't like who I was before I met you." I state, somewhat meekly.

"Then let's be glad you did." She subtly wipes an escaped tear with the corner of her thumb, "Even when technically you didn't." She smiles at the preposterous nature of the sentence, but still, it is a salient point; the old Vastra would never have got so emotional over the absence of a human, so in order for me to feel like that when she was taken back in Trenzalore, she still had to have been part of my life. It was so painfully contrary to reason that just trying to unravel it was too much, even for me.

"If anything happened to you again Jenny, it would break me."

"Well then…" her smile had turned mischievous, "Best keep a  _very_  close eye on me then…" she winks and wraps her arms around me, the warmth of her mammal body is almost overwhelmingly pleasurable against my scales.

"I love you" I whisper, laying my arms over the top of hers.

"I love you too…soft old thing" I feel the muscles of her face smirk against my neck.

We lie there, and part of my wishes it could stay like this; just the two of us, safe, together. But the other, overriding part of me knows that the main reason we are so well-suited to each other is that, deep down, neither us would be happy settling for a mundane, protected life. I would have to accept that she would be in danger, because the reason I adore her is that she gravitates towards it as much as I do. God knows she isn't made of porcelain, and after Trenzalore I know that it as much that I want to protect her, that I need her to protect me from myself. If anything, when you strip down the physical side, I am the more vulnerable one. But I'll be damned if I ever admit that to her.

I close my eyes, and hold on.

Jenny Flint. You are anything but simple to me.

_She is nothing special, I said._

_Nothing noteworthy._ __  
_But yet she has the power_ _  
_ _To do all these things to me._

_She is only a product of her history,_

_Dismantling mine,_

_Even as she sleeps._


End file.
